Checkmate
by IntuitionDrivesMeMad
Summary: Loki is playing the same old game, but there are new players on the field and both he and S.H.I.E.L.D are running out of options and pawns.
1. Same Old Game

He circles his cell, each footfall belying a feral grace that even in this hour he refuses to surrender. His face, wax-white beneath a veil of raven tangles, still bears that sickening smirk that any agent would happily wipe away. That infuriating grin coupled with the unmistakable mischief in his eyes is more than enough to keep his observers on edge. He continues his pacing, only looking up from time to time to spare a moment's eye contact with one of the agents. Without ever saying a word, he can fray their resolve like cheap string. It's a game to him and only he knows the rules.

As tensions mount, the guards rotate and Loki just keeps roaming the confines of his cage like a cat.

"He's a prisoner," mutters one of the faceless agents around him, "and he looks like he owns the damn place."

They wait for the inevitable. Any moment, he's going to pull something. They can hardly bring themselves to blink as he continues his weary game. For hours, he has been on his feet, as have they. Hours more pass and at long last, he makes a move that not one of them expected.

"He's asleep," reports Agent Lane.

"With his eyes open?" The voice over the comm asks.

"Fucking snoring," interjects Agent Dawes.

Lane buries her head in her hand and as the night progresses and the prisoner is still fast asleep. Dawes, a man in his mid-thirties with multiple degrees, struggles to make an origami ballon with a lunch receipt. Sixteen more guards stand throughout the room, none of whom does Lane know personally nor does she care to know.

"Another hard day at the office?" Chuckles one of the unfamiliar coworkers. Lane shoots a cold stare at him that might have given Loki frostbite. The remaining hours of the watch are interminable and when they finally do get to rotate, the clanging of metal jarringly relieves their fatigue.


	2. New Players

_"sounds like the shit's hit the fan," grumbled Dawes as he pulled out his weapon. The procession of armed guards took formation around the cell as the cacophony of metal clanking continued. None of them noticed the figure who blithely strolled in through the vault doors as they took aim at what seemed to be the source of the noise, the ceiling. The sound of glass being sliced caught their attention and they spared no time in firing at the real source. The intruder, a woman, continued to cut the glass with a dagger that clearly was not of this Earth. Ornate and almost ceremonial in appearance, it made its way through the vibropolymer glass like it was cardboard. Through the eyes of her mask, which bore the same archaic etchings as the dagger, only her eyes were not obscured. Underneath a sheer, black, hooded veil, she wore amour and gloves not too dissimilar in construction to that which Loki wore. As the bullets ricocheted off of her like rubber against concrete, Agent Lane shouted a word that made Dawes gasp. The guards rushed the intruder and most of them only got deep wounds for all their trouble. Lane threw her gun aside and threw a punch to the assailant's throat that took her aback. Coughing behind her mask, the figure returned the favour with a decisive slash across Lane's shoulder. Dawes dropped everything he was doing to tend to Lane as the rest of the guards dropped like flies. As Dawes kneeled over her, Lane watched dizzily as the intruder took her prize from his cell. Before anyone could take them out, the pair practically strolled out the door._

Telling the whole story to Coulson was excruciating. Lane almost missed wading through the injured and the dead to fire a shot as she sat underneath lights that had never before been quite so blinding. She had never felt small, not nearly as much as she did now. As acclimated to professional scrutiny as she was, particularly in this line of work, the feeling of her superior officers' accusing eyes burned. When at last what felt like an interrogation was over, her legs could not carry her fast enough to her quarters. Despite what she expected, sleep hit her like a train almost the moment her head hit the pillow. Waking up that morning was a far greater challenge. She was too late for breakfast- as though she could have eaten after yesterday- and found herself racing the clock to her desk.

"Where's the fire?" Laughed Agent Todd, leaning back in his chair. Todd shared Lane's division and had naturally become the topmost expert in irritating his associate. On any other day, Lane wouldn't have hesitated in telling him where to go and what to do when he got there, but she was too tired and embarrassingly breathless. She leaned over her desk, giving flight to a flurry of miscellaneous paperwork. Amidst the ruffling of papers, all that the other agents could hear was Todd's obnoxious chortling and a loud growl of "jackass" as Lane struggled with the mess. The rest of her day was no less frustrating, as the typical entropy that followed such a major security breach was intermittently interrupted by the utter chaos that is the S.H.I.E.L.D. Health program. For weeks, this vicious cycle continued as S.H.I.E.L.D.'s every eye turned to any possible hiding place for two Asgardians.

The Avengers were scattered; without Earth's mightiest heroes, an already arduous task bordered on impossibility. Months passed as neither hide nor hair of either fugitive could be found. As months turned into just over a year, panic only escalated within the organisation as well as the public, who eventually noticed the heightened surveillance activity, even if they weren't entirely sure that it was S.H.I.E.L.D.

March was approaching as the inactivity suddenly rocketed when two civilians' car was totalled by what they thought was an animal, only to find that the source of the impact was an unconscious Caucasian man aged 25-30 with no discernible injuries apart from the scars of injuries sustained years prior. Facial recognition, fingerprinting, and even DNA analysis/comparison failed to yield any results as to his identity. When Lane was assigned to investigate, a second incident occurred in an opposite part of the country: another Caucasian male in the same approximate age group. Then again that same day, a Hispanic woman aged 35-49 was found in a car park in Amsterdam. A week later, a biracial girl in her late teens surfaced on a beach in Malibu. The fifth occurrence came two days later, when a Middle-Eastern man in his late twenties was found in New York, only a few blocks away from the Stark Tower. None of the victims bore any fresh injuries, nor did they have anything in common except that not one of them could be positively identified until extensive labs were drawn to find one final similarity.

Dawes strode into the quarantine unit where four of the five people were housed. All five were in a state of persistent shock since they were found. Lane, already standing at the bedside of the Malibu girl, gave Dawes the mission oversight and had a member of the medical staff run through the group's stats.

"No names, no social security numbers, no PINs, not even wallets. In fact, two of 'em were naked," commented Lane. "Number one doesn't have a pulse. No, I'm not joking, he has no vital signs."

Dawes couldn't help but get a litter closer to verify that the man in the bed beside him was not breathing, though his eyes were wide open and perfectly responsive.

"And this girl," she added, " made the night nurse disappear. They got a terrified call from her in Venezuela."

Dawes quickly backed away.

"This woman screamed when she woke up and a team of agents in earplugs had to evacuate the entire floor. They were petrified, all of them, until she shut up. And they keep finding the other guy on other floors without the ward being unlocked."

"Where's the second one, the other white guy?"

"Oh, you'll love this," smirked Lane, "when he woke up, the paint started to peel and the doc came in to a levitating heart monitor and IV line."

"What."

"He was freaking out and the friggin' tiles started coming up out of the floor. They've got him in Psychiatric."

"He's violent?"

"No, he asked for the padded room after a flying lamp gave him a black eye."

Dawes was understandably speechless for a minutes before he could decide just what to ask next.

"You didn't ask me about the GeneMaps," Lane said, still smirking. "Three guesses what they all have in common." She waved the folder in his face and laughed when his expression dropped to a glare,

"If you say 'the X-Gene,' I'm gunna-"

"It's the X-Gene," she laughed.

"God da-"

Right then, Lane's comm rang. On the other end, an agent panted as he announced:

" Cymru. We found her."


End file.
